136. Madam President, at this twenty-fourth
session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, I
venture on behalf of the delegation of Honduras to convey
to you my warmest and most sincere congratulations on the
honour conferred on you both as an illustrious lady and as
a worthy representative of your country Liberia, a prominent
member of the African community.
137. In wishing you every success in the delicate functions
entrusted to you, I recall with deep emotion the name of
your illustrious predecessor, Mr. Emilio Arenales, who quite
literally gave his life in the service of this Organization.
138. In beginning this statement I cannot hide that I am
not as optimistic as in past years, since in the melancholy
history of the United Nations few sessions have been
heralded by so many and such ominous portents for the
peace of the world. It is undeniable that mankind has
always been in a state of crisis. Nevertheless, it is no less
true that the crisis we face today is the most general and
most serious that we have ever encountered.
139. Some years ago the dominant political and economic
ideologies were virtually polarized in two great Powers.
More or less peaceful coexistence had been maintained
because of the well-grounded fear of bringing about mutual
destruction on such a scale as to amount to collective
suicide. Today one of those ideologies has become divided,
creating a greater danger with the emergence of a third
great Power.
140. Moreover, the unjust differences which exist between
the developed countries and those striving to emerge from
under-development become deeper every day. Solutions
have been proposed to narrow the vast gap separating the
wealthy nations from those which have been called the
third world; but twentieth-century man maintains his
utilitarian and selfish attitude, his attempt to postpone
what all countries desire: a more stable and balanced world
resulting from better and greater opportunities for happiness
and well-being. In this connexion may I be permitted
to pay a tribute to the great work and praiseworthy efforts
of the United Nations, particularly through the United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development? May I
also be allowed to pay a just tribute to the active and
constant labours of the Secretary-General of the United
Nations, U Thant?
141. Colonialism, despite the efforts of this Organization,
has not yet disappeared from the face of the earth. In
various forms desperate efforts are still being made in this
world by Powers which, although they have largely risen
above feudal systems as internal legal regimes and the law
of the strongest as the only means for international
coexistence, have not succeeded in adapting their political
systems to the historical epoch in which we live, in which
the less fortunate peoples of the world constantly advocate,
with greater awareness, the strict application of the
universal principles of law.
142. Nine years have already elapsed since the General
Assembly of the United Nations adopted at its fifteenth
session, with the ostensible purpose of speeding up
de-colonization, resolution 1514 (XV), which states that “the
peoples of the world ardently desire the end of colonialism
in all its manifestations”, proclaims “the necessity of
bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism in
all its forms and manifestations“, and declares that any
“attempt aimed at ... disruption of the national unity and
the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with
the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United
Nations”.
143. We all know that, based on the principles and
purposes of the Charter signed at San Francisco, a new
international law has come into being. In it mankind places
its hopes for peace and justice; and on the basis of those
universal principles, principles that we ourselves created
with the firm intention of acquiring for them a positive
legal character, we today demand acceleration of the
decolonization process.
144. Three years ago we submitted to the General
Assembly a statement regarding our rights over the Santanilla
or Swan Islands, a territory which has legitimately
belonged to us since the discovery of America. The
question of sovereignty over the Santanilla Islands, and our
recovery of that sovereignty, has a profound effect on
public opinion in my country and has created a national
awareness of the need to reach a favourable solution. Direct
negotiations initiated between our country and the United
States of America appear more encouraging since that
country, in a fine gesture of continental brotherhood,
accepted Mexican claims to the territory of El Chamizal.
This attitude leads us to hope that the example will be
repeated, all the more easily this time, for the benefit of
our own country, America and the world.
145. Once again Honduras expresses its solidarity with the
Republic of Argentina in its just claim to the Islas Malvinas.
It likewise supports Spanish claims for the implementation
of General Assembly resolution 2429 (XXIII) regarding the
Territory of Gibraltar.
146. Odious racial differences typified by the policy of
apartheid continue to be a source of shame for our world,
but despite the strong repugnance expressed by most
nations, there unfortunately seems to be no prospect of the
early disappearance of this policy.
147. In the Middle East conflict our position remains
unalterable: we support United Nations decisions making
for a stable peace in that region, whereby the States
involved would abandon any attitude of permanent
belligerency and at the same time withdraw all military forces
which have occupied by force territories that do not belong
to them. The Charter of the Organization of American
States, that of the United Nations, and the rules of
international law establish the principle that conquest gives
no rights.
148. It is fitting to recall here the thoughts of Mr. Richard
M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, as
expressed recently in this Assembly:
“The test of the structure of peace is that it ensure for
the people of each nation the integrity of their borders,
their right to develop in peace and safety and their right
to determine their own destiny without outside interference.“
[1755th meeting, para. 47.]
149. It is painful to recognize that since the end of the
Second World War, supposedly the war to end all wars, the
world has not lived a single day in complete peace, and
violence has relentlessly assailed Europe, Asia and Africa.
The rights of nations and men have been trampled
underfoot in the four corners of the earth. Nevertheless,
one continent proudly proclaimed its respect for law as a
standard for international coexistence: the new world
discovered by Christopher Colombus, whose destinies were
forged by Valle, Bolivar, Washington, San Martin and so
many other paladins of freedom and justice. Yet the
honour of America, the continent of hope and peace, has
also been sullied by the frustrated ambitions of a bellicose
country desirous of conquering territories and lacking the
most elementary sense of legality.
150. I have said once before in this august forum that at
this point in time it is no longer conceivable that
semi-sovereign States should continue to exist under
protectorates; but an undeniable reality shows us, to the
sorrow of mankind, that States do exist which under the
influence of their totalitarian doctrines endeavour to
impose their interests and to destroy the self-determination
of peoples by force of arms and a reign of vandalism and terror.
151. I have recalled my past statements because Honduras,
whose respect for international legal standards is traditional
and whose sincere belief in Central Americanism has been
constantly reiterated at the cost of many sacrifices, was — I
say this with indignation and sadness — recently the victim
of a treacherous and cruel aggression. It was treacherous,
because it was carried out without any declaration of war
and because, oblivious of the fraternal, political and
economic links among the Central American peoples, it
threw away to the boom of cannon and the rattle of
machine guns all the progress that had been made in Central
American integration. It was cruel because, ignoring the
international rules governing armed conflicts and not as an
act of war, it carried out a mass destruction of property
and, from the beginning to the end, crime and pillage were
daily and constantly perpetrated by the invading troops
against the civilian population of Honduras.
152. Indeed, on 14 July of this year the Republic of El
Salvador carried out a surprise bombing attack against eight
Honduran cities, while at the same time its land forces
invaded the territory of my country. After five days of
battle, during which the invading army was unable to break
through our defence lines, the Organization of American
States by an appropriate resolution put an end to hostilities
at 10 p.m. on 18 July. The same resolution established a
96-hour deadline for the departure of the Salvadorian
troops from the portion of Honduran territory which they
had occupied illegally by force. The deadline was ignored
by the Government of El Salvador, which on the contrary
took advantage of it to move forward without opposition
from our troops, which faithfully observed the cease-fire
that had been decreed.
153. In view of the manifest violation of the regional
organization’s injunctions, the Council of the Organization,
acting provisionally as an organ of consultation, convened
on 26 July 1969 the Thirteenth Meeting of Consultation of
Ministers of Foreign Affairs to examine the case put
forward by El Salvador against the organization under
article 7 of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.
154. The Government of El Salvador sought to justify its
reprehensible conduct by setting up, in parallel with its
military aggression, a vast propaganda machine operating
both inside and outside its territory. Within the territory its
purpose was to produce an explosion of hate among the
Salvadorian population against everything Honduran; and
this was widely and systematically fostered. Outside its
territory the purpose was to give international opinion a
false image of Honduras by distorting the facts. These
publicity tactics recall the practices used in the recent past
by the notorious Nazi regime, when it was setting the stage
and preparing a propitious atmosphere for aggression
against a country.
155. In both the Commission on Human Rights and the
Organization of American States El Salvador presented
slanderous accusations against the people and Government
of Honduras, even alleging that they had committed the
crime ‘of genocide against Salvadorian immigrants living in
Honduras. It made that accusation to justify its planned
aggression, seeking to use the argument that the army of El
Salvador had the obligation to defend its fellow citizen: in
Honduran territory. This again is reminiscent of the
philosophy of the Nazi régime: the living space theory and
the rights of the German minorities in the Sudetenland.
156. Honduras, in its turn, denounced before the Organization
of American States the crimes committed on 13, 14
and 15 June by El Salvador against thousands of Honduran
citizens, both men and women, as well as the outrages
inflicted on its national symbols, the flag and the anthem,
and requested an investigation of the facts. The Commission
appointed a sub-committee to visit Honduras and
El Salvador to carry out the investigation which had been requested.
157. In Honduras the international officials of the group
were unable to find any traces—and how could they? — of
the non-existent crime of genocide. Hence, they gave a
resounding refutation of the monstrous Salvadorian slander,
a refutation backed by their moral status and integrity.
Continuing this policy of defaming Honduras, the Government of El Salvador alleged that, in my country, the funds
of Salvadorian persons and companies had been frozen and
confiscated. That allegation, like so many others, is totally
false. Neither the Government nor the Central Bank of
Honduras has adopted any such measures.
158. Asa result of the military aggression to which my
country was subjected on 14 July last the Central Bank of
Honduras placed the accounts of Salvadorian individuals
and companies in Honduran institutions under a special
regime for the purpose of preserving the stability of the
banking system, which was threatened by the fact that El
Salvador was encouraging its nationals in Honduras to
transfer their funds to El Salvador on the ground that
Honduran banks belonged to American companies and that
the funds were being transferred to the United States. It is
not only the accounts of Salvadorian citizens that have
been subjected to the special regime, but also the accounts
of those Hondurans who listened to the insidious campaign
of El Salvador.
159. The funds of the Branch in Honduras of the
Salvadorian Investment Bank have not been frozen, nor has
any action been taken which would prejudice Salvadorian
interests in that institution. On the contrary, to safeguard
those interests the Central Bank of Honduras repeatedly
stated that the Investment Bank was operating normally, It
was, however, considered necessary to guarantee that that
Bank’s reserves would remain in the country so that the
deposits of Honduran citizens would not be left uncovered,
particularly when it was observed that on 3 July, in a
departure from its customary practice, the branch had
transferred a large sum of money to its central office.
160. What is certain is that in El Salvador the funds of
Honduran residents have been frozen and — a most unusual
fact — it has been confirmed that the governing boards of
Salvadorian companies with branches in Honduras have
given instructions from El Salvador to United States banks
to refrain from making payments to those branches.
Financial operations cannot be normalized as long as El
Salvador is unwilling to guarantee the payment of more
than $4 million advanced in credit to Salvadorian citizens
and companies by various Honduran national institutions,
apart from $3 million in commercial credits.
161. It is likewise false that there still exist, or have
existed, any official restrictions on Salvadorian companies
such as to cause them to close down or to transfer their
businesses to Honduran citizens. What happened was that
the owners, aware of the situation created for them by the
Salvadorian military aggression against Honduras, decided
of their own accord to sell their businesses. We see,
therefore, that all these problems were created for the
Salvadorians by the warlike actions of their own Government.
Neither is it true that the Government of Honduras
has confiscated any equipment or materials from
Salvadorian companies engaged in road works in Honduras.
162. Honduras has full confidence in the regional organization
and complete faith in the results of its action. It
must now perform the painful but ineluctable duty of
explaining very briefly some of the circumstances and
causes of the present situation between Honduras and El
Salvador. First, the frontier between the two countries has
never been determined, an anomalous situation which my
Government has tried to resolve by the civilized procedures
laid down in international law and required for the
harmony which should exist among the countries of the
world. To that end, and in fulfilment of previously
contracted obligations, Honduras submitted to El Salvador
almost two years ago a draft of bases and procedures for
drafting a frontier treaty, but received no reply or comment
whatsoever from the Government of that country, despite
repeated requests. Secondly, there has been for more than
50 years a constant and indiscriminate emigration of many
groups of Salvadorians, which is manifestly directed against
our country, to get rid of this economically unproductive
and socially dangerous part of El Salvador’s population.
163. Honduras has demonstrated its desire to co-operate
in finding a solution to El Salvador’s socio-economic
problem, and to that end presented to the Fourth Meeting
of the Foreign Ministers of Central America in January this
year a plan for a rational and balanced demographic
integration of the Central American isthmus.
164. El Salvador claims that the Government of Honduras
has expelled thousands of Salvadorians who have returned
to their own country, where, of course, they are described
as “refugees”. In answer to this further calumny my
Government has repeatedly explained that the Honduran
authorities have never given any order for the expulsion of
Salvadorians. Those who have left our country have done so
of their own free will, prompted by one of the following
reasons: the first is that they know they have no identity
documents, This group which has returned to El Salvador is
made up of individuals of very low social status who fall an
easy prey to the cunningly-devised instructions given to
them to make themselves appear as victims. Moreover,
because of their low cultural level and their minimal or
non-existent economic productivity they have easily been
able when so ordered by their Government to pretend to
have been victims in Honduras so as to receive in El
Salvador what they hoped would be gratuitous assistance to
them as “refugees”. This is all the more likely since a type
of person has come to Honduras from El Salvador who in
his own country is condemned to be a Social pariah. An
attempt has been made to impress the world by the return
of these false victims to their own country.
165. Others have left because they are aware that the
present situation, provoked by El Salvador, has meant that
their residence in Honduras cannot be the same as before
the conflict. They are no longer welcome to the Honduran
people. This is a natural and readily explicable reaction to
the affronts and physical and moral harassment which, to
begin with, thousands of Hondurans suffered in El Salvador.
These difficulties were later compounded by the
murders, violations of women and slaughtering of children,
together with the looting and depredation of property,
desecration of churches and other acts of pillage committed
by the Salvadorian troops and hordes of Salvadorian
civilians during the days following the cease-fire.
166. These and no others were the causes that led the
Government of El] Salvador to take the extraordinary step
of breaking off diplomatic relations with Honduras and
launching, for its own advantage, a premeditated and
undeclared war of aggression, throwing overboard the entire
inter-American legal system. It was for that reason that the
organ of consultation of the Organization of American
States was on the verge of declaring it an aggressor, with all
the consequences applicable under the Inter-American
Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.
167. Although its crime was specified, for sentimental,
politico-economic and not strictly legal reasons it was not
declared an aggressor. Nevertheless, I believe that the
majority of the Foreign Ministers attending the Thirteenth
Meeting of Consultation were convinced that there was an
aggressor State, El Salvador, and a State victim of
aggression, Honduras.
168. At the end of the Meeting of Consultation his
Excellency, Mr. Juan B. Martin, Foreign Minister of the
Republic of Argentina, stated:
“I should like to point out that, as is stated in two
articles of the documents we have just approved, there is
a cause underlying the confrontation between them and
that, if we go away from here with any feeling that we
have done a good job, we shall be mistaken, Our work
must continue, since the principal reason for this
confrontation and its deep-rooted cause obviously lie in the
under-development of some of our Latin American
countries; and unless we are all capable of meeting this
challenge, we shall soon see another of our countries in
the same situation. We can unequivocally say that want,
misery and under-development generate violence. Only if
we are fully conscious of this fact can we seek the road to
a solution.”
169. These words of the illustrious Argentine Foreign
Minister were part of a statement he made when submitting
a draft declaration to the Thirteenth Meeting of Consultation
of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of America. Paragraph 3
of that draft declaration, which was adopted by acclamation,
establishes that the “status of immigrants is regulated
by the laws of the countries in which they reside and to
whose jurisdiction they are subject”.
170. The underlying causes in El Salvador are implicit in
the inordinate concentration of the ownership of that
country’s arable lands in a few hands and in the unequal
distribution of the national income, circumstances which
keep more than 3 million inhabitants in humiliating living
conditions, as the official documents of the country itself reveal.
171. For the sake of a better illustration, allow me to
quote the following ideas contained in the paper “Lands
and Settlement” written by Dr. Abelardo Torres, former
Minister of the Economy of El Salvador, and published by
the university of that country in 1961:
“State—Planned Settlement. History.
“After these distributions of State lands, made for the
purpose of increasing the cultivation of coffee, the liberal
agrarian reform was carried out which abolished the
common lands and the indigenous community properties
and decreed that thenceforward all common and community
lands would become the private property of their
occupants on payment of a given sum. On the other hand,
the State ‘dispossessed’ itself of the lands it owned for the
benefit of their occupiers. Those reforms were put into
effect by the Commons Abolition Act, 1882, and the
Indigenous Community Properties Abolition Act, 1881.
“The peasants were thus degraded to mere wage-earners,
with no resources other than their hands to work
as seasonal labourers on the estates of large or
middle-sized landowners.
“The discontent among the rural masses, deprived of
their lands and exploited on wretched wages, began to
manifest itself in a violent form at the same time as the
Commons and Indigenous Community Properties Abolition
Acts were put into effect. Thus there were uprisings
in the west of the Republic on 12 August 1872, on 16
March 1875, on 2 January 1885 and on 14 November
1898. The relation of cause to effect, of the loss of their
lands to the rebellion of the peasantry, is manifest. Thus
in the 1898 revolt, several judges who had subdivided the
common lands had their hands cut off as a punishment
for measuring and distributing the land and dispossessing
its former occupants.
“Yet, despite the rumbling discontent of the rural
masses and sporadic local uprisings, things never became
as grave as they were in the events of 1931 and 1932. In
the first of those years, during the Presidential electoral
campaign, one of the opposition parties systematically
harangued the peasants on the idea of land distribution,
thus sowing the seed of a revolt. The revolutionary
movement acquired an extraordinary impetus and at one
time very nearly triumphed.
“To put it down, all available armed forces had to be
mobilized and a civilian militia established. Repression
was remorseless and probably excessive. It is estimated
that 17,000 farm workers perished, most of them being
executed after they had surrendered or simply slaughtered en masse.
“Those facts show, moreover, that the liberal agrarian
reform has had harmful social consequences by uprooting
the peasant from the land he had cultivated for centuries
and by creating that mass of wage-earners who work
when they can as season farm hands and see every day a
further shrinkage of the lands they are allowed to
cultivate as sharecroppers or tenants.”
That is what a Salvadorian citizen, Dr. Abelardo Torres,
stated in his paper “Lands and Settlement”.
172. J take the following information from page 46 of the
National Plan for the Economic and Social Development of
El Salvador, 1965-1969, prepared by the National Council
for Economic Planning and Co-ordination and published in
December 1964:
“Income distribution is as important as average income;
since if wealth is highly concentrated the great majority
suffer even though the average income may appear high.
A recent study has shown that only 8 per cent of families
have an income of 400 colones ($160) or more per
month, while 60 per cent of families earn less than 130
colones ($52) per month. Approximately 8 per cent of
the population receives approximately 50 per cent of the
national income.
“Thirty per cent of the total population of El Salvador,
approximately 750,000 persons, spend less than 12
colones ($4.80) per month on consumer goods, and 58
per cent spend less than 24 colones ($9.60).”
This is a quotation from the document ”The National
Plan”.
173. With this basic information it will be readily understood
that the aggressive policy of El Salvador has as one of
its primary origins the serious and deep social imbalance
which compels its Government to adopt a bellicose attitude
endangering the peace and tranquillity of the Central
American region.
174. This conflict between two States members of the
Central American Common Market showed that in time,
even in contractual and voluntary economic unions
imperialist attitudes may emerge which lead a member State
to impose its will by threats and pressures.
175. In this connexion the illustrious Foreign Minister of
Mexico said in his statement in the General Assembly on 24
September 1969 that:
”...the economic integration of several countries,
though undoubtedly valuable in creating larger areas
where industry can develop on an adequate scale, may
also create grave tensions which paradoxically inflame
nationalist feelings even between States which are really
part of one nation...” [1763rd meeting, para. 25.]
176. Because of the foregoing you will understand the
lack of optimism to which I referred at the beginning of
this statement. Although I have repeatedly stated that war
is the negation of all values, and although my country has
always had and still has faith in the means of peaceful
settlement of disputes provided in international treaties, I
wish to make it perfectly clear that the Government of
Honduras is now on the alert and fully prepared to exercise
its right of self-defence at any time it should become
necessary. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
177. Yet, despite the sombre outlook and the apparent
frailty of legal standards, I should be failing in my duty as
my country’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and as a lawyer if
I did not end my statement by reiterating the staunch faith
of Honduras in international law and its steady confidence
in the effectiveness of the regional and world organizations,
on whose existence depends the very life of our world;
since, as I said on another occasion, there meet in this
forum all the anxieties and aspirations of mankind.
178. Madam President, your wisdom and skill are a lofty
and firm guarantee for the best success of this session of the
General Assembly.